#Cosmo’s Ornithologist

[cosmolumine]

📚The Tag Library📚

[pinkwavybubbles]

ALLOW ME TO FINALLY INTRODUCE BRISA AND HER ALTS!!

Time for their short intros

Brisa (UnderTale)

Brisa is a humanoid snake monster with snakes for hair. She’s very optimistic and good-natured ever since she was a child. Brisa grew up with her grandparents on the country side so she has a sweet southern accent. Brisa and Cosmo grew up together since elementary school but at the age of 16 they both realised they have feelings for each other, They’ve been dating ever since. Brisa also has an interest in archaeology.

Coral (Underfell)

Now Coral is your typical edgy girl who thinks the world is against her. She’s pretty quiet and tends to keep to herself but she won’t hesitate to snap back at anyone if they start talking shit about her or anyone she does care for. Coral has a pretty nasty attitude only Maroon can handle. Coral is also a Gemologist. Loves gemstones alot

Tree (UnderSwap)

Despite being in the swapped universe, her personality hasn’t really changed that much. However, Tree studies Floriculture instead as her grandparents own a flower shop and plans to take over when her grandmother retires, for now she’s an assistant for the shop. She’s also Sky’s biggest cheerleader whenever there’s a hockey game on.

Baller (SwapFell)

A local troublemaker who tends to pickpocket others’ wallets and cash but the gold mine for her is gum for her to chew on. Baller is also pretty sassy when she feels like a smartass and likes to get on others’ nerves. Despite it all, She’s talented at crafting escape plans when she knows it’s time to bail. Lilac and Baller were rivals at kids until they grew older and became friends, and then eventually lovers. Baller is a Ornithologist, She thinks birds are cool.

Viper (Outertale)

Extremely hyper and pretty chatty, a chatterbox you can say. She’s just loves to talk and talk about her love for Entomology (study of bugs). She was always seen as the weird kid in school because she could handle bugs easily but she didn’t care because she just thinks they are fascinating. Other then that she’s just a sweet girl who has a lot on her mind and will spill out a lot to anyone who’d listen to her. Luckily Vinyl is a Great listener.

And that’s our snke girlies for now and I hope you guys love them as much their cosmos do~

[ausetkmt]

New York Post : Scientists warn that light pollution could make stars invisible in two decades

Make a wish upon a star — while you still can.

Scientists are warning that due to light pollution, human’s ability to see the cosmos at night could be wiped out in just 20 years.

“The night sky is part of our environment and it would be a major deprivation if the next generation never got to see it, just as it would be if they never saw a bird’s nest,” Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, told The Guardian.

“You don’t need to be an astronomer to care about this. I am not an ornithologist but if there were no songbirds in my garden, I’d feel impoverished.”

Light pollution conditions have rapidly worsened in the last several years, including since 2016 when astronomers reported that the Milky Way was no longer visible to a third of humanity, according to Rees.

Scientists told the outlet that light pollution is now causing the night sky to brighten at a rate of about 10% per year.

A child born in an area where 250 stars are visible at night today would only be able to see about 100 by the time they reach 18, Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences, dauntingly revealed.

“A couple of generations ago, people would have been confronted regularly with this glittering vision of the cosmos – but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare. Only the world’s richest people, and some of the poorest, experience that anymore. For everybody else, it’s more or less gone,” Kyba said. The increased issue of light pollution can be blamed on the increased use of light-emitting diodes.Getty Images

Though light pollution has been a longstanding issue for half a century, the latest burgeon of the problem can be reportedly traced to the increased use of light-emitting diodes (LED) and other forms of intense night-time lighting.

Other than the aesthetic loss of our stars, light pollution poses several other ecological dangers.

In 2019, scientists found that the issue is contributing to an “insect apocalypse” — light has a major impact on how bug species move, search for food, reproduce, grow and hide from predators. Light pollution is now causing the night sky to brighten at a rate of about 10% per year.Getty Images/500px

Light pollution confuses sea turtles and migrating birds, who are guided by moonlight.

Darker nights also provide cover for crime and other dangerous situations for humans, researchers note.

But there could be a simple fix to light pollution.

Rees and his team of researchers are pushing their 2020 report that outlines several policies to help diminish the illumination, including appointing a minister for dark skies, creating a commission for dark skies and setting strict standards for the density and direction of lighting.

[warningsine]

The Herefordshire hills basked in brilliant sunshine last weekend. Summer had arrived and the skies were cloudless, conditions that would once have heralded succeeding nights of coal-dark heavens sprinkled with brilliant stars, meteorites and planets.

It was not to be. The night sky was not so much black as dark grey with only a handful of stars glimmering against this backdrop. The Milky Way – which would once have glittered across the heavens – was absent. Summer’s advent had again revealed a curse of modern times: light pollution.

The increased use of light-emitting diodes (LED) and other forms of lighting are now brightening the night sky at a dramatic rate, scientists have found. Indiscriminate use of external lighting, street illumination, advertising, and illuminated sporting venues is now blinding our view of the stars.

In 2016, astronomers reported that the Milky Way was no longer visible to a third of humanity and light pollution has worsened considerably since then. At its current rate most of the major constellations will be indecipherable in 20 years, it is estimated. The loss, culturally and scientifically, will be intense.

“The night sky is part of our environment and it would be a major deprivation if the next generation never got to see it, just as it would be if they never saw a bird’s nest,” said Martin Rees, the astronomer royal. “You don’t need to be an astronomer to care about this. I am not an ornithologist but if there were no songbirds in my garden, I’d feel impoverished.”

Rees is a founder of the all-party parliamentary group for dark skies which recently produced a report calling for a host of measures to counter the curse of light pollution. These include proposals to appoint a minister for dark skies, create a commission for dark skies and set strict standards for the density and direction of lighting.

The introduction of a carefully selected package of planning rules to control obtrusive light – backed by legal clout and penalties for non-compliance – could make major differences, the committee stressed. The alternative would be to lose sight of night skies “painted with unnumber’d sparks,” to quote Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Research by physicist Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences has revealed that light pollution is now causing the night sky to brighten at a rate of around 10% a year, an increase that threatens to obliterate the sight of all but the most brilliant stars in a generation. A child born where 250 stars are visible at night today would only be able to see about 100 by the time they reach 18.

Gazing at a night sky crossed by a glittering Milky Way has become a splendour of another age, Kyba told the Observer. “A couple of generations ago, people would have been confronted regularly with this glittering vision of the cosmos – but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare. Only the world’s richest people, and some of the poorest, experience that any more. For everybody else, it’s more or less gone.” Nevertheless, the introduction of only a modest number of changes to lighting could make a considerable improvement, Kyba argued. These moves would include ensuring outdoor lights are carefully shielded, point downwards, have limits placed on their brightness, and are not predominantly blue-white but have red and orange components.

“Measures like that would have an enormous impact,” he added.

The problem is that light pollution is still not perceived by the public to be a threat. As Professor Oscar Corcho, of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has put it: “The negative consequences of light pollution are as unknown by the population as those of smoking in the 80s.”

Yet action is now urgently needed. Apart from its astronomical and cultural impact, light pollution is having serious ecological consequences. Sea turtles and migrating birds are guided by moonlight. Light pollution causes them to get confused and lose their way. Insects, a key source of food for birds and other animals, get drawn to artificial lights and are immediately killed upon contact with the source.

The case against light pollution goes further. Bluish emissions of LEDs are almost entirely lacking any red or near infrared light, said Prof Robert Fosbury, of the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL). “We are becoming starved of red and infra-red light and that has serious implications,” he said. “When reddish light shines on our bodies, it stimulates mechanisms including those that break down high levels of sugar in the blood or boost melatonin production. Since the introduction of fluorescent lighting and later LEDs, that part of the spectrum has been removed from artificial light and I think it is playing a part in the waves of obesity and rises in diabetes cases we see today.”

UCL researchers are preparing to install additional infrared lamps in hospitals and intensive care units to see if they have an effect on the recovery of patients who would otherwise be starved of light from this part of the spectrum.

“It’s going to take a huge effort to change the face of the planet and turn LEDs into more friendly lighting,” said Fosbury. It’s going to be a big job but we need to do it because it is having a very damaging effect on human health.”

[katslefty]

"Black kites (Milvus migrans), whistling kites (Haliastur sphenurus) and brown falcons (Falco berigora) all regularly congregate near the edges of bushfires, taking advantage of an exodus of small lizards, mammals, birds and insects — but it appears that some may have learnt not only to use fire to their advantage, but also to control it.

""“At or around an active fire front, birds — usually black kites, but sometimes brown falcons — will pick up a firebrand or a stick not much bigger than your finger and carry it away to an unburnt area of grass and drop it in there to start a new fire,” says Bob Gosford, an ornithologist with the Central Land Council in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, who led the documentation of witness accounts. “It’s not always successful, but sometimes it results in ignition.”"

[versatilepoetry]

Please Do Consult The Creator

For a faint idea about the road; the places it leads to; consult the rustic and aboriginal tourist guide, For a faint idea about the body; a first hand knowledge of its intricate parts; consult the specialist and prudent doctor, For a faint idea about the cosmos; a glimpse into the history of stars; consult the hi-tech and contemporary astronaut, For a faint idea about the battlefield; the weapons used in pugnacious war; consult the intrepid warrior, For a faint idea about the garden; the fraternity of plants protruding from its ripened soil; consult the bushy haired gardener, For a faint idea about the building; its majestic elevation towering splendidly towards the sky; consult the dexterous and skillful architect, For a faint idea about the computer; a sagacious browsing through its fundamentals; consult the software prodigy, For a faint idea about the scores of birds; the sounds they emanated while singing in melodious cadence; consult the dedicated ornithologist, For a faint idea about medieval history; the vacillations of the kingly empire; consult the monk sitting beneath the gigantic tree, For a faint idea about your destiny; the meaning of all those infinite bifurcation's on your palm; consult the prudent and mystical palmist, For a faint idea about the ocean; the preposterously huge sharks lurking around in gay abandon; consult the domineering and bespectacled captain, For a faint idea about the bus; the routes it travels on and stops; consult the pot-bellied and uniformed conductor, For a faint idea about the solvents bubbling in the laboratory; the innumerable equations scribbled rampantly on the blackboard; consult the ingenious scientist, For a faint idea about the paintings; the mesmerizing shapes sketched and evolved within the canvas; consult the gullible and unshaven artist, For a faint idea about poetry; the inexplicable meaning embedded within the royal verse; consult the innovative and indefatigably writing writer, For a faint idea about shimmering jewels; the grandiloquent chains of pearls scintillating wildly behind transparent glass; consult the wiry bodied and lanky goldsmith, For a faint idea about catching the panther; explicitly divulging the name of the animal by merely viewing its remote footprints; consult the savage and sprint footed African hunter, For a faint idea about solving mind boggling puzzles of arithmetic; cracking every riddle encapsulated within the school textbooks; consult the stern and stringent voiced teacher, For a faint idea about love; romancing in the aisles of unsurpassable desire and emotion; consult your enchanting beloved, For a faint idea about interacting with the acrimonious society; consult your mother; richly experienced in adeptly dealing with the same, But for a complete idea about life; its share of good and gruesomely evil; its blissful rise and unpredictable pit-falls; the spirit of survival and letting one simultaneously exist; the origin of religion segregating entire mankind; the inevitable urge to procreate and continue this Universe; Don't ask me; for I cant even give you a faint idea; all I can say is that for pacifying your present anxieties and whatever that may futuristically arise, please do consult the Creator.

[naivelocus]

Darwin Day: A personal offering

Two hundred and four years ago this day, Charles Darwin was born. The vision of life that he created and expounded on transformed humanity's perception of its place in the universe. After Copernicus's great heliocentric discovery, it was Darwin's exposition of evolution and natural selection that usurped human beings from their favored place at the center of the universe. But far from trivializing them, it taught them about the vastness and value of life, underscored the great web of interactions that they are a part of, and reinforced their place as both actor and spectator in the grand game of the cosmos. Not only as a guiding scientific principle but as an all-encompassing element of understanding our place in the world, evolution through natural selection has become the dominant idea of our time. As the eminent biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky put it quite simply, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Evolution is a fact. Natural selection is a theory that is now as good as a fact. Both evolution and natural selection happen. And both of them owe their exalted place in our consciousness to a quiet, gentle and brilliant Englishman.

Today it is gratifying and redeeming to know how right Darwin was and how much his theory has been built upon, and frustrating to keep on realizing how those professing religious certainty threaten to undermine the value of his and others' careful and patient discoveries. Especially in the United States evolution has become a bizarre battleground of extreme opinions and mudslinging, a development that seems to be in step with the tradition of coloring any and every issue with a political hue. In this country, it seems today that you can hardly utter an opinion without attaching a label to it. You cannot simply have an opinion or take a position, no matter how grounded in fact it is; your position has to be Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Neo-Conservative, Socialist or Atheist. If none of these, it has to be Centrist then.

When it comes to evolution, attaching the label of "Darwinism" has obscured the importance and power of the theory of natural selection. On one hand, those who defend the label sometimes make it sound as if Darwin was the beginning and end of everything to do with evolution. This is simply untrue; in his creation of the theory of natural selection, Darwin was a little like Martin Luther King. The Civil Rights movement owed an incalculable debt to King, but King was not the Civil Rights movement. On the other hand, those who oppose the Darwinist label make it sound like all of us who "believe" in evolution and natural selection have formed a cult and get together every weekend to worship some Darwin idol.

Unfortunately both these positions only serve to obfuscate the life and times of the man himself, a simple, gentle and brilliant soul who painfully struggled with reconciling his view of the world with prevailing religious sentiments and who thought it right to cast his religious views aside in the end for the simple reason that his findings agreed with the evidence while the others did not. Darwin Day should be a chance to celebrate the life of this remarkable individual, free from the burdens of religion and political context that his theory is embroiled in today. Because so much has been said and written about Darwin already, this will be more of a personal and selective exposition. Since I am a lover of both Darwin and books, I will tell my short story of Darwin as I discovered him through books.

When you read about his life for the first time, Charles Darwin does not evoke the label of "genius", and this superficial incongruence continues to beguile and amaze. His famous later photographs show a bearded face with deeply set eyes. His look is gloomy and boring and is not one which elicits the image of a sparkling, world-changing intellect and incendiary revolutionary taking on an establishment steeped in dogma. Darwin was not a prodigy by the standards of his English contemporaries William Hamilton or Lord Kelvin, nor did he particularly excel in school and college. He went to Cambridge, of course, but most well educated Englishmen went to Cambridge or Oxford. At Cambridge, although he studied religion, Darwin had one overriding quality: curiosity about the natural world. He consummately nurtured this quality in field trips and excursions; as one famous story goes, Darwin once held two beetles in two hands and popped one of them in his mouth so that he could free one hand for catching a third very attractive one which he had just noticed. He indulged in these interests much to the chagrin of his father who once said that he would not amount to anything and that he would be a disgrace to his family.

As is well-known, Darwin's story really begins with his voyage of the Beagle when he accepted a position on a ship whose melancholic, manic-depressive captain Robert Fitzroy wanted an educated, cultured man to keep him company on a long and dangerous voyage that circumnavigated the world. For Darwin this was a golden chance to observe and document the world's flora and fauna. One of the best illustrated expositions of Darwin's voyage is in Alan Moorhead's "The Voyage of the Beagle" which is beautifully illustrated with original drawings of the wondrous plants, animals and geological formations that Darwin saw on the voyage. Darwin's own account of the voyage is characteristically detailed and modest and depicts a man enthralled by the beauty of the natural world around him. By the time he set off on his historic journey, young Charles had already been inspired by his teacher Charles Lyell's book on geology that talked about geological changes over vast tracts of time: in time, “Principles of Geology” would become a seminal text and a touchstone of the Great Books program. As is also rather well known, evolutionary ideas had been in the air for quite some time by then (as marvelously documented in Rebecca Stott's recent book "Darwin's Ghosts", which traces evolutionary thinking back to Aristotle and even before), and Darwin certainly was not the first to note the rather simple fact that organisms seem to have changed over time, a view that nonetheless and naturally flew in the face of religious dogma. Most importantly, Darwin was well aware of Thomas Malthus's famous argument about the proliferation of species exceeding the resources available to them, an idea whose logical extension would be to conjecture a kind of competition between species and individuals for finite resources. The "struggle for survival", taught today in school textbooks, a phrase that became much maligned later, nonetheless would have been obvious to a man as intelligent and perceptive as Darwin when he set off on his voyage.

Biology, unlike mathematics or physics, is a science more akin to astronomy that relies on extensive tabulation and observation. Unlike a theoretical physicist, a biologist would be hard-pressed to divine truths about the world by armchair speculation. Thus, painstakingly collecting and classifying natural flora and fauna and making sense of its similarities and differences is a sine qua non of the biological sciences. Fortunately Darwin was the right man in the right place; endowed with a naturally curious mind with an excellent memory for assimilation and integration, he was also unique and fortunate to embark on a worldwide voyage that would enable him to put his outstanding faculties to optimum use. Everywhere he went he recorded meticulous details of geology, biology, anthropology and culture. His observation of earthquakes and rock formations in South America and his finding of fossils of giant mammals lend credence to his beliefs about organisms being born and getting extinguished by sometimes violent physical and planetary change. His observation of the Pacific and Atlantic islanders (especially the ones on Tierra del Fuego) and their peculiar customs underscored the diversity of human life along with other life in his mind. But perhaps his best known and most important stop came after several months of traveling, when the ship left Ecuador to dock at the Galapagos Islands.

Again, much has been written about the Galapagos Islands and about Darwin's Finches (most notably by Jonathan Weiner in his “The Beak of the Finch”). The truth is subtler, both simpler and more interesting than what it is made out to be. Darwin had mistaken his famous finches for other species of birds. It was only after coming back that his friend, the ornithologist John Gould, helped him to identify their correct lineage. But finches or not, the birds and the islands provided Darwin with a unique opportunity to study what we now know as natural selection. The islands were separated from each other by relatively small distances and yet differed significantly in their geography and flora and fauna. On each island Darwin observed similar plants and animals that were yet distinct from each other. As in other places, he also observed that species seemed to be adapted to their environment. Geographic isolation and speciation were prominent on those hot, sweaty and incredibly diverse landmasses.

After five years of exhaustive documentation and sailing Darwin finally returned home for good, much changed both in physical appearance and belief. His life following the voyage has been the subject of much psychological speculation since he settled down with his cousin Emma and never ever left the British Isles again. He also seemed to have been stricken with what today is noted by many authors as a kind of psychosomatic illness because of which he was constantly ill with abdominal and other kinds of pains. After living in London for some time, Darwin retired to Down's House in Kent where he peacefully lived the rest of his life with a kind and loving wife, playing with his children, taking walks along the path at the back of his house named the "Sandwalk", corresponding with intellectuals around the world and constantly interrupting his research with salutary visits to spas and resorts for "natural" treatments that were often of dubious value.

But peaceful as his life was, psychologically Charles Darwin was fomenting a maelstrom of revolution that was to have earth-shaking implications. Another fact that is frequently emphasized in contemporary discourse is his hesitation to not publish his ideas for another twenty-five years. Darwin was planning to write it for a while, but was finally jolted into writing it when he received a letter from an obscure young naturalist named Alfred Russell Wallace who was living a hard life of science and natural history exploration in Indonesia. Wallace had read some of Mr. Darwin's papers and manuscripts and had been struck by the similarity of his ideas to his own. Would Mr. Darwin comment on them? Darwin finally realized that he had to act to prevent getting scooped but characteristically credited Wallace in his published work.

In my mind however, Darwin's procrastination and its story sounds much simpler than the mystique and psychological speculation that sometimes envelop it. As we noted earlier, Darwin was a highly trained biologist and scientist of the first caliber. He knew that he would have to exhaustively document and classify the windfall of creatures, plant and rock specimens that he had collected on his voyage. Apart from thinking and writing about his Beagle collections, Darwin also maintained an astonishingly comprehensive and detailed research program on marine invertebrates and barnacles. More tellingly, he did experiments to find out if seeds are viable even when dispersed over long distances over salt-water. He visited gardens and zoos, and quizzed pigeon breeders about their profession. Much of this was in preparation for the grand act that was to follow. In case of the barnacles and marine creatures, Darwin's research was second to none. He published several extremely detailed books on the minutiae of these organisms; some of these had titles which would have put anyone to sleep.

And yet the level of detail in them reflects the extraordinary patience, power of observation and meticulous hard work that characterized the man, characteristics crucial for developing the theory of natural selection. Darwin was also very fortunate to have had several friends and colleagues who were experts in areas that he was not, who helped him classify and name all the material. Foremost among his correspondents were Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker to whom he confided not just his scientific questions but also his emerging convictions about the interconnections and implications that were emerging from his research and writing. Also as noted above, John Gould accomplished the crucial task of reminding Darwin that his Galapagos birds were finches. With help from these collaborators and his own studies and thoughts on his observations, thoughts that filled literally dozens of rough drafts, scribblings and private diaries, Darwin finally began to glimpse the formation of a revolutionary chain of thought in his mind.

But Darwin did not rush forth to announce his ideas to the world, again for reasons that are obvious; Victorian England was a hotbed of controversy between science and religion, with many distinguished and famous scientists there and in other countries not just fervently believing in God, but writing elegant tomes that sought a supernatural explanation for the astounding diversity of life around us. Cambridge was filled with intellectuals who sought a rational framework for God's intervention. Darwin would have been quite aware of these controversies. Even though Darwin's grandfather (a more pugnacious character) himself had once propounded an evolutionary view, Darwin was finely attuned to the sensitive religious and social debate around him. Not only did he not want to upset this delicate intellectual and spiritual balance and get labeled as a crackpot, but he himself had not started his voyage as a complete non-believer. One can imagine the torment that he must have faced in those early days, when the evidence pointed to facts that flew in the face of deeply held or familiar religious beliefs. One of the factors that dispossessed Darwin of his religious beliefs was the stark contradiction between the observation of a cruel and ruthless race for survival that he had often witnessed first hand, and the image of an all-knowing and benign God who kindly reigned over his creations. As the evidence grew to suggest relationships between species and their evolution by the forces of natural selection that preserved beneficial characteristics, Darwin could no longer sustain two diametrically opposite viewpoints in his mind.

Opponents of evolution who want to battle the paradigm not from a scientific viewpoint (because they can't) but from a political one frequently raise a smokescreen and proclaim that evolution itself is too complex to be understood. The tricksters who propagate intelligent design further attest to the biochemical complexity of life and then simply give up and say that only an omniscient God (admittedly more complex than the systems whose complexity they are questioning) could have created such intricate beauty. The concept of a struggle for survival has also been hijacked by these armies of God who proclaim that it is this philosophy that would make evolution responsible for genocide, fascism and the worst excesses of humanity. This is a deeply hurtful insult to natural selection and evolution as only the most dogmatic believers can deliver.

One thing that constantly amazes you about evolution is its sheer simplicity. Stripped down to its essentials, the "theory" of evolution can be understood by any school child.

1. Organisms and species are ruthlessly engaged in a constant struggle for survival in which they compete for finite resources in a changing environment.

2. In this struggle, those individuals who are more adapted to the environment, no matter how slightly, win over other less adapted individuals and produce more offspring.

3. Since the slight adaptations are passed down to the offspring, the offspring are guaranteed to preserve these features and therefore are in a position to survive and multiply more fruitfully.

4. Such constant advantageous adaptive changes gradually build up and, aided by geological and geographical factors, lead to the emergence of new species.

It's almost like a simple three-step recipe that when followed keeps on churning out culinary wonders of staggering complexity and elegance. In my mind the beauty of evolution and natural selection is two-fold; firstly, as Darwin emphasized, the slightest adaptation leads to a reproductive advantage. Such slight adaptations are often subtle and therefore sometimes can sow confusion regarding their existence; notice the debate between driver and passenger mutations in fields ranging from evolutionary biology to oncology. But the confusion should be ameliorated by the second even more striking fact; that once a slight adaptation exists, it is guaranteed to be passed on to the offspring.

As Gregor Mendel hammered the mechanism for natural selection in place a few years after Darwin with his discovery of genetic inheritance, it became clear that not every one of the offspring may acquire the adaptation. The exact pattern may be complex. But even if some of the offspring acquire it, the adaptation is then guaranteed to confer reproductive fitness and will be passed on. This fact should demolish a belief that even serious students of evolution, and certainly laymen, have in the beginning; that there is something very uncertain about evolution, that it depends too much on "chance". The key to circumvent these misgivings is to realize the above fact, that while adaptations (later attributed to mutations) may arise by chance, once they arise, their proliferation into future generations is virtually certain. Natural selection will ensure it. That in my mind is perhaps Darwin's greatest achievement; he finally found a mechanism for evolution that guarantees its existence and progress. As for the struggle for survival, it certainly does not mean that it results in non-cooperation and purging of other individuals. As examples in the living world now document more than convincingly, the best reproductive fitness can indeed come about through altruistic leanings and cooperative behavior.

Every one of these factors and facts was detailed and explained by Darwin in "The Origin of Species", one of the very few original works of science which remain accessible to the layman and which contained truths that have not needed to be modified in their basic essence even after a hundred and fifty years. It was readable even when I picked it up as a callow young college student. No one who approaches it with an open mind can fail to be taken with its simplicity, elegance and beauty. One of the most extraordinary things about Darwin and something that continues to stupefy is how right the man was even when he lacked almost all the modern tools that have since reinforced basic evolutionary ideas. As one of Darwin's intellectual descendants, the biologist E O Wilson says, it is frustrating for a modern biologist to discover an evolutionary idea through his work, and then go back a hundred and fifty years and discover that the great man had hinted at it in his book.

And yet as Darwin himself would have acknowledged, there is much in the book that needed to be modified, there was much that he could not explain. Darwin had no inkling of genes and molecular biology, nor could he come up with a convincing mechanism that explained the sheer age of the earth required for evolutionary processes to work their charm (the mechanism was found later with the discovery of radioactivity). The exact mechanism of passing on adapted characteristics was unknown. Major fossils of primates and humanoid ancestors had yet to be discovered. Quite importantly, random genetic drift which is completely different from natural selection was later discovered as another process operating in evolution. The development of viral and bacterial resistance in causing diseases like AIDS finally brought evolution to the discomfort of the masses. It was only through the work of several evolutionary biologists and geneticists that Darwin finally became seamlessly integrated with the understanding of life in the middle twentieth century. Genomics has now proven beyond a shade of doubt that we truly are one with the biosphere. But in the absence of all these developments, it is perhaps even more remarkable how many of Darwin's ideas still ring true.

There is another factor that shines through in "The Origin"; Darwin's remarkable modesty. One would have to search very hard in history to find a scientist who was both as great and as modest. Newton may yet be the greatest scientist in history, but he was nothing if not a petty, bitter and difficult man. Darwin in contrast was a symbol of kindly disposition. He doted on his children and told them stories. He loved and respected his wife even though their religious views gradually grew more distanced. His written correspondence with her was voluminous and fond. His correspondence with his collaborators, even those who disagreed, was cordial and decent. Never one for contentious public debates, he let his "bulldog" Thomas Henry Huxley fight his battles; one of them with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce ended in a famous showdown when the Bishop inquired whether it was through his father or mother that Huxley had descended from an ape, and Huxley countered that he would rather descend from an ape than from the Bishop. Darwin stayed away from these entertaining confrontations; as far as he was concerned, his magisterial work was done and he had no need for public glory. To the end of his life this kind and gentle man remained a wellspring of modest and unassuming wonder. His sympathetic, humane and sweet personality continues to delight, amaze and inspire reverence to this day.

In the later stages of his life Darwin became what he himself labeled as an agnostic but what we today would probably call an atheist. His research into the progression of life and the ruthless struggle that it engenders made it impossible for him to justify a belief in a paternal and loving deity. He was also disillusioned by popular conceptions of hell as a place where non-believers go; Darwin's father was a non-believer and yet a good doctor who treated and helped hundreds of human beings. Darwin simply could not accept that a man as kind as his father would go to hell simply for not believing in a version of morality, creation and life trotted out in a holy book. Probably the last straw that convinced Darwin of the absurdity of blind faith was the untimely death of his young daughter Annie who was his favorite among all the children. According to some accounts, after this happened, Darwin stopped even his cursory Sunday trips to church and was satisfied to take a walk around it while not at all minding his wife and children's desire to worship inside.

The second fact is also in tune with Darwin's kind disposition; he admittedly had no problem reconciling the personal beliefs of other people with his conviction about their falsity. Darwin's tolerance of people's personal faith and his unwillingness to let his own work interfere in his personal life and friendships is instructive; to the end he supported his local parish and was close friends with a cleric, the Reverend John Innes. Darwin's example should keep reminding us that it is actually possible to sustain close human bonds while having radically different beliefs, even when one of these is distinctly true while the other one is fantasy. Nurturing these close bonds with radical scientific ideas that would change the world for ever, Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, a content and intellectually satisfied man.

To follow, nourish and sustain his legacy is our responsibility. In the end, evolution and Darwin are not only about scientific discovery and practical tools arising from them, but about a quest to understand who we are. Religions try to do this too, but they seem to be satisfied with explanations for which there is no palpable evidence and which seem to be often contradictory and divisive. It is far better to imbibe ourselves with explanations that come from ceaseless exploration and constant struggle; the very means that constitute these explorations are then much more alluring and quietly fulfilling than any number of divergent fantasies that can only promise false comfort. And these means promise us a far more humbling and yet grand picture of our place in this world. Especially in today's age when the forces of unreason threaten to undermine the importance of the beautiful simplicity in the fabric of life that Darwin and his descendants have unearthed, we owe it to Charles Darwin to continue to be amazed at the delightful wonder of the cosmos and life. We owe it to the countless shapes and forms of life around us with whom we form a profoundly deep and unspoken connection. And we owe it to each other and our children and grandchildren to keep rationality, constructive skepticism, freedom and questioning alive.

LITERATURE ON DARWIN:

I don't often write about Darwin and evolution here for a simple reason; there is literally an army of truly excellent authors and bloggers who pen eloquent thoughts about these subjects and the amount of stuff published about him will fill up entire rooms. You could probably put together a thousand-page encyclopedia simply listing works on Darwin. His original work as stated above is still very readable. Every aspect of his life and work - the scientific, the psychological, the social, the political and the personal - has been exhaustively analyzed. I have certainly not sampled more than a fraction of this wealth of knowledge, but based on my interest in Darwin and selected readings, I can recommend the following.

For what it's worth, if you want to have the best overview of Darwin's life after he came home from his voyage on the Beagle, I think nothing beats the elegance of language and wit of David Quammen's "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin". Quammen has exhaustively researched Darwin's post-Beagle life and work, and no one I have come across tells the story with such articulate enthusiasm, fondness and attention to detail in a modest sized book.

Janet Browne's magisterial biography of Darwin is definitely worth a look if you want to get all the details of his life. Browne pays more attention to the man than the science, but her work is considered the authoritative work, and there are nuggets of eloquence in it.

As a student in high school I was inspired by Alan Moorehead's "The Voyage of the Beagle" noted above which combines an account of Darwin's life and voyage with beautiful and full page illustrations.

Geting to evolution now, there's an even bigger plethora of writings. Several books have captured my attention in the last many years. I don't need to extol the great value of any (and indeed, all) of Richard Dawkins' books. If you ask me which ones I like best, I would suggest "The Selfish Gene", "The Extended Phenotype", "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "The Blind Watchmaker". For a journey into our ancestral history, Dawkins' strikingly illustrated "The Ancestor's Tale" is excellent. Speaking of ancestral history, Neil Shubin's "Our Inner Fish" charts a fascinating course that details how our body parts come from older body parts that were present in ancient organisms. So does his recent book "The Universe Within". Shubin provides scores of interesting tidbits; for instance he tells us how hernias are an evolutionary remnant. Another great general introduction to evolution is Carl Zimmer's "Evolution"; Zimmer has also recently written excellent books on bacteria and viruses in which evolution plays a central theme.

No biologist- not even Dawkins- has had the kind of enthralling command over the English language as Stephen Jay Gould. We lost a global treasure when Gould died at age sixty. His books are relatively difficult to read and for good reason. But with a little effort they provide the most sparkling synthesis of biology, history, culture and linguistic exposition that you can ever come across. And all of them are meticulously researched, although Gould’s political ideology sometimes has to be watched out for. Out of all these I personally would recommend "Wonderful Life", and if you want to challenge yourself with a really difficult unedited original manuscript written just before he died, "The Hedgehog, the Fox and The Magister's Pox". His collections of essays - "Full House" and "Eight Little Piggies" for instance - are also outstanding.

I don't want to really write about books which criticize creationism since I don't beat that horse much, but if you want to read one book about the controversy that rips apart intelligent design proponents' arguments, read Ken Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" which makes mincemeat out of the usual "arguments from complexity" trotted out by creationists which are actually "arguments from personal incredulity". He also has a book covering the Dover Trial. I have only browsed it but it seems to be equally good read. What makes Miller a tough target for creationists (and puzzling for evolutionists) is that he is a devout Christian.

This is an updated and revised version of a post originally written on Darwin's 200th birthday. 

— The Curious Wavefunction

[tuthillscopes-blog]

Milky Way no longer visible to one third of humanity, light pollution atlas shows

check it out @ https://tuthillscopes.com/milky-way-no-longer-visible-to-one-third-of-humanity-light-pollution-atlas-shows/

Milky Way no longer visible to one third of humanity, light pollution atlas shows

Scientists describe cultural lack of unparalleled magnitude as global atlas reveals extent of sunshine pollution within the worlds skies

It’s inspired astronomers, artists, musicians and poets however the Milky Way turn into a remote memory for a lot of humanity, a brand new global atlas of sunshine pollution suggests.

The research reveals that 60% of Europeans and almost 80% of Americans cannot begin to see the glowing gang of our universe due to the results of artificial lighting, even though it is imperceptible towards the entire populations of Singapore, Kuwait and Malta.

Overall, the Milky Way is not visible to several third from the worlds population.

Lead author Fabio Falchi in the Light Pollution Science Institute in Italia stated the problem would be a cultural lack of unparalleled magnitude.

Chris Elvidge of america National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with a co-author from the study, added the occasions he’s seen the Milky Way happen to be magical encounters.

Through our technology weve stop that possibility for big figures of individuals for multiple generations now, he stated. Weve lost something – but how can we place value onto it?

Explained John Milton like a broad and ample road whose dust is gold, and pavement stars, the Milky Strategy is so obscured through the results of modern lighting that it’s no more visible to 77% from the United kingdom population, using the universe masked from view across nearly 14% of the nation, including regions stretching from London to Liverpool and Leeds.

Further afield, areas round the metropolitan areas of Hong Kong, Beijing along with a large stretch from the New England of the usa are among individuals in which a peek at the galactic band is unthinkable – a scenario also found across a lot of Qatar, holland and Israel. In Belgium, it can’t be viewed in 51% of the nation.

Humanity has surrounded our world inside a luminous fog that stops the majority of Earths population from getting the chance to look at our universe, the authors write.

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The bright areas on the map show where the glow from artificial lighting blots out the stars and constellations. Photograph: University of Colorado/PA

Published in the journal Science Advances by an worldwide group of scientists, the study is dependant on data collected from space through the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, along with computer types of sky luminescence and professional and citizen science measurements of sky brightness obtained from the floor.

The resulting global atlas reveals that giant swaths of humanity experience light pollution, including greater than 99% of individuals living in america and also the Eu. People living near Paris would need to travel 900km to areas as a result central Scotland, Corsica or central The country to locate a region with night skies almost unpolluted by light, the authors add.

By comparison, Central African Republic and Madagascar are some of the countries least impacted by light pollution, with nearly the whole of Greenland boasting pristine skies.

Before the creation of night-time lighting grew to become really prominent within the 19th and 20th centuries, everyone could have been acquainted with the Milky Way, stated Marek Kukula, public astronomer in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, who had been not active in the study. We have seen it in mythology concerning the sky, in most cultures all over the world. It is among the apparent aspects of heaven combined with the stars, the planets and also the moon.

When light from your streetlamps, homes and illuminations is tossed up in to the sky it bounces off particles and moisture tiny droplets within the atmosphere and it is scattered, leading to artificial sky glow – among the important aspects adding to light pollution. The upshot is the fact that spectacles such as the Milky Way may become obscured from view.

The night time sky belongs to our natural heritage. It’s beautiful, it’s awe-inspiring or being able to see it’s a method for us to connect with the broader world and understand our devote natural world, stated Kukula. When we lose that it’s a shame because we’ve lost that direct reference to something larger than us then one that’s very beautiful.

The problem turn into worse. Based on the new study, if all sodium lighting is substituted for awesome white-colored Brought lighting, artificial sky brightness seen across Europe could greater than double because of the rise in blue-light emission.

Also it isnt only our look at the night time sky that’s impacted by light pollution. There’s also biological consequences, not just on wild birds and insects and mammals, but additionally even on humans, stated Elvidge, mentioning the light pollution can disrupt natural conduct of creatures and it has elevated numerous human health concerns.

It’s not all disaster and gloom. Regardless of the Milky Way being masked from view in lots of metropolitan areas over the United kingdom you may still find regions of the nation where you’ll be able to obtain a good look at the night time sky. There are numerous dark sky parks and reserves within the United kingdom that have been worldwide certified through the International Dark Sky Association to possess lower levels of sunshine pollution – places like Galloway Forest Park, stated Kukula, adding that various online tools will help direct stargazers right area of the sky.

However the authors from the new study say more must be completed to tackle the problem of sunshine pollution. Among possible measures, states Elvidge, are using more shielded street lighting, motion-activated lights and cut-off occasions for illuminating structures.

Kukula concurs, It’ll reduce our power bills, it’ll reduce our carbon footprint, it will not modify the lighting we have around the roads, he stated. And it’ll let us see a lot of wonders from the night sky.

Our children and grandchildren won’t ever observe that beauty

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Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE . Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

We are here on planet Earth but we live in a huge cosmos, and its one of the things that links us to our position in the universe. And so it is wonderful to see it. I think by looking up at the stars we have endeavoured to do so many things, weve sent probes to Pluto and beyond, and if we lose contact with that I think we lose some of our ability to dream and to aspire. It starts with the Milky Way but where will it end?

I spent a wonderful six months working at a telescope in Chile, at the Gemini telescope, and there we could actually see [the Milky Way] – it did look like a path across the sky. It has inspired songs, it has inspired people to great endeavours and so I think the more light pollution there is the more we miss out on that, and the generations to come will never see that beauty.

Maggie Aderin-Pocock, space researcher and presenter from the Sky during the night

I’m possibly more inspired through the Milky Way than any artist that has ever resided

For me personally the Milky Way continues to be an unfailing supply of inspiration and question, as fundamental element of my identity as the truth that I survive Earth within our Solar System.

I’ve been a separate evangelist for that universe, and am possibly more inspired through the Milky Way than any artist that has ever resided.

I deplore the barriers we’ve erected that block the vista for many of Earths people. Nothing can obvious your brain, elevate the soul, or inspire curiosity greater than the Milky Way.

Jon Lomberg, artist and principal artistic collaborator of astronomer Carl Sagan

Its essential that it is not just astronomers who worry about this

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Martin Rees, the astronomer royal. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

The night sky is the most universally-shared part of our environment. Its been gazed and wondered at, throughout history, by people in all parts of the world. Its indeed a sad deprivation that many young people have never seen a clear starry sky. And its important that its not just astronomers who care about this.

Im not an ornithologist, but Id feel deprived if songbirds disappeared from my garden. Likewise, there would surely be widespread sadness if light pollution screened out our celestial environment from ever more of us.

Lord Martin Rees, astronomer royal

The Milky Strategy is our link to another

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Ben Miller, comedian and author of The Aliens Are Coming! Photograph: Jim Ashcroft/ Dan Clifton/ Abigail Adams/BBC

The Milky Way is our link to the Other: to the lost civilisations out there in the galaxy, so far away and so profligate that they appear not as stars, but as a single brush stroke of watery light. When we lose the Milky Way, we sever the umbilical cord that connects us to the wider universe.

Ben Miller, actor, comedian and author

We, within our ceaseless dash to earn money and canopy the planet with concrete, have forfeit this priceless treasure

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Former guitarist of Queen, Brian May. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Its not just the Milky Way [people] cant see. Who in the 21st Century has ever seen the Zodiacal Light – that beautiful cone of dusty light that can even outshine the Milky Way, a thrill to see if you are lucky enough to have dark skies where you live. And probably about 10,000 stars that the three Wise Men on their way to Bethlehem would have been able to see are all invisible to us in the cities, where we are swamped by mainly unnecessary stray light. From my roof in Kensington on a clear night I can see roughly 30 stars – its a tragedy, really. Along with all the other excesses of what we call civilisation, our first-hand awareness of the cosmos has been forgotten.

We are so fortunate to be living on a planet that gives us a view, not only of our own Solar System companions: the planets, comets, etc – but also of countless stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Because of this weve been able make the foundations of cosmology, discovering the very nature of the vast universe around us. From our position out on a spiral arm of the Galaxy, we see both inwards towards the centre of the Galaxy and outwards towards its edge. The billions of stars in the Galactic plane show up as a milky light which has enchanted people from the dawn of history. But we, in our ceaseless dash to make money and cover the world with concrete, have lost this priceless treasure. Along with almost all our wildlife, our contact with Nature, and our humanity.

Brian May, astrophysicist and lead guitarist of Queen

We ought to act to safeguard our capability to benefit from the world

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Professor Lucie Green. Photograph: Penguin Random House

The Milky Way evokes a feeling of awe when I see it. It always has and it always will. This is partly because it is rare to see now due to light pollution. Its analogous to spotting a rare bird in your back garden. But I have many memories of seeing this band of hazy light from the dark skies of my village when I was younger. To be able to see the collective light from the stars making up our own galaxy gives a tantalising sense of the enormity of our universe and the structures within it. That so few people are now able to see now the Milky Way is a great loss. We are forcing ourselves to look inward and not outward. And just as we bemoan the loss of our countryside we should act to protect our ability to enjoy the universe. If we dont, its inspirational value will be untapped and a site of scientific interest will be rendered accessible only using professional telescopes on mountains or on spacecraft.

Lucie Green, Professor of Physics at College College, London and presenter from the Sky during the night

Find out more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/10/milky-way-no-longer-visible-to-one-third-of-humanity-light-pollution

[cosmolumine]

Identity V Muses

Ornithologist - Ezra Sordyl

Faction: Survivor

Type: Contain/Assist

Gender: Male

Age: 25

Likes: Birds

Dislikes: Loud Sounds

Abilities:

“Bird Call” The Ornithologist carries a whistle with him. This whistle releases a confusing bird call, which when the ornithologist is within 30 meters of the hunter, the whistle stuns the hunter for 5 seconds. This ability has a 50 second cooldown.

Due to the loud clacking of cipher keys, the ornithologist becomes stressed due to a dislike of loud noises. Decoding process is slowed down by 15%.

Experienced in the outdoors. Vaults windows and pallets 3% faster.

Lore:

Ezra began his studies in Australia, where he was born into a middle class family. He studied the wild birds of Australia, and he’d show his father his journals. Ezra’s father, an ornithologist, was fascinated, and allowed Ezra’s studies to be published. Ezra earned a degree early when he was 18, in Ornithology. He got the title of “Professor” at age 24. One day, Ezra decided to study more into the supernatural and bizarre. He heard of the strange cases of the Oletus Manor, and decided to go there to research if the birds were erratic, strange, or different from normal North American birds. When he came to the Oletus Manor, he decided to go explore the abandoned Sacred Heart Hospital. Claiming that he had heard about the games, and wanted to investigate the maps so he’d have a strategy in advance. He went onto the second floor of the hospital, and walked past an old cart with dusty blood filled vials with a mysterious marking to them. blood-filled vials. The blood splattered onto him, which disoriented Ezra, and he saw vivid memories of golden feathers, as well as sitting atop a broken part of the roofing to the hospital. The blood turned out to be a part of an old experiment from before the hospital was abandoned, perhaps a request by the Oletus Manor owners. It had a mix of Siren’s Song and blood. He looked over an old note on the cart. Experimental blood can be donated to unwilling participants to the games if they refuse to take ‘Siren’s Song’. Ezra grabbed a syringe which he could blurrily read, which said “Temporary Cure” and injected himself with it. He tried everything to forget what had happened at the hospital, yet it was stuck in his mind. He took the syringe, and kept it locked in a box in his room, hidden from sight. He was given a journal by the Oletus Manor staff for the games. Ezra decided to take a look at it, and noticed the first page was already filled out.

~~~ Dollmaker ~ “Argus”

Faction: Hunter

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Likes: Dolls

Dislikes: Fire

Abilities:

Presence 0: Argus carries two dolls with him. The Tracker Doll, and the Decoy Doll.

The Tracker Doll slowly crawls around, and it has a wide detection radius. The standard detection radius, being 5.5 meters. When a survivor is close enough to the doll, Argus would see a red outline of them. The Tracker Doll has a lifespan of 40 seconds. Cooldown is 15 seconds and can be switched with the Decoy Doll.

The Decoy Doll, when placed, mimics the terror radius of Argus. It tricks survivors into thinking Argus is nearby, but he actually isn’t. The doll has a lifespan of 40 seconds. The terror radius is 5.5 meters Cooldown is 15 seconds and can be switched with the Tracker Doll.

Presence 1000: The Tracker Doll’s radius increases to 7.6 meters.

Presence 2500: The Decoy Doll’s terror radius increases to 7.6 meters.

Lore:

Argus used to make dolls for orphaned children and sometimes collected eyes from old dolls that were sent to the garbage yards to be destroyed. He took the fabrics and eyes and made new dolls for the children, to put a new life into the original dolls. Sometimes he keeps the original eyes of old dolls that he really likes to himself, hoarding them and keeping them for their beauty. He sees every doll having its own story, and sometimes he makes art out of old dolls, cherishing its stories and all the cracks in the porcelain. One day a fire broke out at his workshop, and a heavy shelf of finished dolls fell onto him. He mourned the destroyed dolls, and the fire conjoined severed parts of dolls to his body, and the eyes he so cherished conjoined to his face. The fire made him forget so much, and all he remembers are his finished dolls, which he so cherishes and clings to like a small child, not wanting them to get destroyed again. One of his cherished dolls ended up at the Oletus manor when the property was to be bulldozed for apartments, and Argus followed behind, bringing his salvaged dolls and repairing them at the Manor, as well as naming them and treated him like his own children, even requesting two cribs for both of them. These dolls, he named Marie and Elise. Argus remembers from the fire was seeing a black helmet and platinum blonde hair, running away from the fire, and his destroyed dolls and workshop.